lained
everything that was doubtful in his conduct by alleging the obligations
of gratitude to his first benefactor Harley, Defoe declared that since
the Queen's death he had taken refuge in absolute silence. He found, he
said, that if he offered to say a word in favour of the Hanoverian
settlement, it was called fawning and turning round again, and therefore
he resolved to meddle neither one way nor the other. He complained
sorrowfully that in spite of this resolution, and though he had not
written one book since the Queen's death, a great many things were
called by his name. In that case, he had no resource but to practise a
Christian spirit and pray for the forgiveness of his enemies. This was
Defoe's own account, and it was accepted as the whole truth, till Mr.
Lee's careful research and good fortune gave a different colour to his
personal history from the time of Harley's displacement.[3]

[Footnote 3: In making mention of Mr. Lee's valuable researches and
discoveries, I ought to add that his manner of connecting the facts for
which I am indebted to him, and the construction he puts upon them, is
entirely different from mine. For the view here implied of Defoe's
character and motives, Mr. Lee is in no way responsible.]

During the dissensions, in the last days of the Queen which broke up the
Tory Ministry, _Mercator_ was dropped. Defoe seems immediately to have
entered into communication with the printer of the Whig _Flying Post_,
one William Hurt. The owner of the _Post_ was abroad at the time, but
his managers, whether actuated by personal spite or reasonable
suspicion, learning that Hurt was in communication with one whom they
looked upon as their enemy, decided at once to change their printer.
There being no copyright in newspaper titles in those days, Hurt
retaliated by engaging Defoe to write another paper under the same
title, advertising that, from the arrangements he had made, readers
would find the new _Flying Post_ better than the old. It was in his
labours on this sham _Flying Post_, as the original indignantly called
it in an appeal to Hurt's sense of honour and justice against the
piracy, that Defoe came into collision with the law. His new organ was
warmly loyal. On the 14th of August it contained a highly-coloured
panegyric of George I., which alone would refute Defoe's assertion that
he knew nothing of the arts of the courtier. His Majesty was described
as a combination of more graces, virtues, an